


Where You Will Finish

by still_lycoris



Category: Through the Dragon's Eye
Genre: Courage, Cruelty, Fear, Gen, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23911333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: It's the end of the day and Charn suddenly seems to want to talk. Jenny isn't so sure.
Comments: 2





	Where You Will Finish

It was getting dark outside.

Jenny thought it had got dark quicker today than it had yesterday but maybe that was just because she was cold and the day had been so awful. Or maybe it really had got darker earlier. Pelamar looked greyer than ever. Everything was dying, slowly but surely – and there wasn’t even any hope while Charn was there. She couldn’t imagine his version of the spell bringing back colour and joy to this place.

She shivered. It was so cold and her eyes were itching. The print in the book was so small and squiggly and she’d been staring at it for hours, trying to work out what was important right now and what might be important later (if there was a later.) They were doing a good job but she couldn’t be proud of it any more, not now.

“You have stopped reading.”

Charn didn’t sound very angry about it. Jenny thought it was because Charn knew that he didn’t need to bother sounding angry. You didn’t need to sound angry or upset when you could just make everybody scared of you just by _being_ there.

“Please,” she said. “I’m hungry.”

Charn looked at her. She wondered if he understood about hunger. He was all bones. Did he eat? She supposed that he had to. Didn’t all living things have to eat? Charn was horrible but he did seem to be alive. 

Of course, he might understand but not care. He didn’t seem to care about how people felt. He couldn’t possibly, not after what he’d done to Doris and all of Morris’s pets. He’d laughed at Morris. He thought it was funny.

“Hungry? Then Morris should make you some food,” Charn said, now sounding quite friendly. Jenny wasn’t sure that she liked the way he did that. Perhaps because she didn’t really believe it. He wasn’t nice. If he was being friendly, it was just because he wanted to be and you never knew if he’d switch unexpectedly back to being horrible.

Morris had scrambled up immediately, staring at Charn with that sideways frightened look that he’d been doing ever since Charn had arrived. He darted over to the cupboards. Jenny took a step towards him, then froze as a heavy taloned hand landed on her shoulder, nails clicking together horribly close to her neck..

“No.”

The talons tapped again and she carefully turned around. Charn removed his hand and pointed at one of the chairs.

“Sit.”

She sat. To her surprise, Charn sat down too, his head tilting very slightly on one side as he looked at her. She hadn’t seen him sit since he’d come here. He had stood and stalked around the room. Sitting didn’t make him any less horrifying. He still looked too large and too horrible to be there.

“Tell me about your world.”

She blinked. He’d said it with all indication of interest, as though they were just going to have a friendly talk. He even leaned toward her a little. She wished that he wouldn’t. Once, she’d accidentally left an apple in her schoolbag and only found it months later. It had been the same strange pulpy brown that Charn’s skin seemed to be. She imagined if you touched the parts of him that weren’t bone or nail, they would feel the same too.

Charn’s fingers tapped again. The message was clear. She was supposed to speak.

“It ... it’s very different from Pelamar,” she said slowly. “It’s not as brightly coloured and there are more people. There’s no magic or ... or anybody that isn’t human. Nobody can fly in the air, the way you all can.”

_Could_ Charn fly? She didn’t know that. Doris had said that all Pelamots could but she’d also said Charn wasn’t a Pelamot any more. The idea of him flying was awful. She pushed the thought away.

“Are you all so ... small?” Charn asked.

He gestured at her. Jenny felt a little offended. She wasn’t small. She was taller than Scott – but then, Charn hadn’t seen Scott. And Doris had asked her a similar question the night before. It just hadn’t felt like it mattered as much then.

“No,” she said. “We grow bigger as we get older. We go from being children to being adults.”

Another tilt of the head.

“You change?”

“Yes. We grow up.”

“Ah. Pelamots generally do not, you know. They start as they mean to go on. That’s why they didn’t like me. I changed.”

Jenny hoped her face was staying very still. She mustn’t look at the puddle that had been Doris. It might make him angry and she didn’t dare do that. They needed Morris, she was pretty sure that Charn knew that but at the same time, he might, he _might_ ... and then she’d be alone and everyone would be gone.

“W-what did you change from?”

She didn’t mean to ask the question. She was so busy not looking at anything except Charn’s face that it just sort of slipped out. For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t like it and wouldn’t answer but then he leaned forward a little again, his cloak rustling.

“One of _them_.”

He twirled a hand around the Keeper’s House. Morris looked over at them as he did, flinching slightly but he nodded a tiny bit, as though agreeing. Jenny stared.

“You were a Keeper?”

“Yes. A long time ago now, wasn’t it Morris? A long time since I lived here. Not that I was sorry to leave _them_ , you understand. _They_ couldn’t see, _they_ wouldn’t listen when I told them how things should be. I could see all of my potential and they would have crushed it, never let me grow and that was unendurable. But before that, this was my house. It will be again, when you have finished reading the book for me and the Veetacore is mine.”

Jenny made sure that her hand didn’t stray to her scarf. Just as she had hoped, Charn had not realised that there were words knitted into it. He didn’t know that if all had gone as planned – and it had to have done, it had to, surely, surely Amanda and Scott would have told Gorwen everything and he would be coming back to help them? Surely everything would be all right and Charn would not be allowed to stay here and ruin everything?

“Can everyone in your world read?”

She swallowed, dragging her attention back to the curious creature that was watching her.

“Yes. At least, nearly everyone. Most people learn.”

“And they all change?”

“Yes. All the time.”

“What a strange world it must be.”

Jenny didn’t say anything. She supposed that it would be strange to Charn, just as Pelamar was strange to her but she wasn’t sure that she wanted to agree. The whole conversation felt almost unreal. She was talking to a monster, a real monster – because that’s what Charn was, he looked like a monster and he behaved like a monster so he was a monster – about her world and he was being nice about it. He sounded interested and thoughtful and she didn’t know how to feel about it.

She shivered without meaning to. Charn leaned forward.

“Are you still cold?” he asked. He sounded quite gentle, as though he was worried about her. Maybe he was.

“Yes.”

“You can come under my cloak for a while, if you wish.”

She jerked back into the chair. She couldn’t help it. The idea of being under _that_ \- of being close to that horrid pulpy skin and the bones and the _claws_ ...

Charn laughed. He apparently found her terrified reaction incredibly funny. Just like he loved it when Morris was afraid of him. He _liked_ their fear. He _liked_ watching them be scared.

Monster. He was a monster. She mustn’t forget that.

“I like you Jenny,” Charn said, the amusement still in his voice. “I don’t know if whatever power Gorwen used to bring you here will send you back when the task is done but if it does not, you can stay with me.”

He said it as though it were a gift. Jenny didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure if he expected her to and surely, if he did, he knew she’d refuse it. Morris appeared at her side, pressing a plate into her hands. He was hunched up and staring at her with such worry that Jenny felt she had to smile at him, trying to show him that it was okay, that he didn’t need to protect her, even though she wished he could.

The arrival of the food seemed to end Charn’s interest in her. He stood and moved away, back to the Veetacore, circling it, looking at the pieces again. Jenny nibbled at the food. It didn’t taste of anything. Was that because everything was fading to nothing or just because she was scared or because Charn was there and everything had got worse?

She didn’t know. It didn’t matter. She took another bite and then another, swallowing it down. She had to keep strong, no matter what. She would eat and then she would sleep - _somehow_ she would sleep – and tomorrow she would get up and she would read the book again and either Gorwen would come or she would think of something else.

Charn was right about something. There were things that could happen that were “unendurable” as he had said. She had never known it before but now she did and she knew that she would never forget it. She was not going stay with Charn. Never. She would do _anything_ to make sure that didn’t happen. She read the book because she couldn’t bring herself to bring about Morris’s end but she decided there and then that she would rather be a puddle on the ground than live as Charn’s servant. 

But only if that was the very, very last resort.

She took another bite of the food and stared at Charn’s back as he moved around the Veetons, staring at them, probably thinking evil plans.

They would defeat him. One way or another. No matter what.


End file.
